Bush guilty in 2006 Coatesville murder

WEST CHESTER — A Philadelphia man accused of playing the role of a getaway driver in the 2006 murder-for-hire of a Coatesville barbershop owner was found guilty Thursday of being an accomplice to his killing.

A Common Pleas Court jury deliberated about 3½ hours before returning a verdict on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, aggravated assault, burglary, and conspiracy against defendant Jeremiah Bush.

Although Judge David Bortner said after the verdict was read in open court that he was prepared to sentence Bush to the mandatory term of life in prison without parole on Friday, the prosecution asked for additional time to prepare its case against Bush, who has been held without bail since his 2009 arrest in the case.

Bush’s conviction, which came after four days of testimony, is the first for a quartet of men accused of the alleged paid hit on Jonas “Sonny” Suber, whose dalliance with the girlfriend of a city crime figure put him on a collision course that led not only to his own death, but that of another man and the near-fatal wounding of Suber’s brother.

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Observers said that Bush, 26, dressed in a navy blue suit and dress shirt, showed little, if any, emotion when the jury foreman read the verdict, as members of his family looked on and wiped tears from their eyes.

The trial in the county Justice Center featured testimony from witnesses who said that Bush had admitted accompanying a friend who went to take care of “some business” involving the “beef” between Suber and Duron “Gotti” Peoples at Suber’s home the day of his slaying.

The fatal shooting, in which a gunman fired eight shots into Suber’s body as he lay prone in the foyer of his city home, was allegedly ordered by his enemy, Peoples, and paid for by an associate of Peoples’. Bush was included in the scheme by his friend from Philadelphia, Eric “Stroda” Coxry, the alleged gunman, according to the prosecution’s case.

The panel of seven men and five women began their deliberations about 5:30 p.m. Thursday, following four days of testimony. They returned with their unanimous verdict about 8:55 p.m.

In their closing arguments Thursday afternoon, the lead prosecutor and Bush’s defense attorney battled over whether the evidence presented by the prosecution had been enough for the jury to find Bush guilty of being an accomplice in the shooting.

For Deputy District Attorney Ronald Yen, testimony given by a Downingtown woman and a Philadelphia man, both friends of Bush, before and after the shooting corroborated the authorities’ version of events.

“It would be an extraordinary coincidence that two people would come up with the same story,” Yen said of April Lynn Brown and Clarence “Bam” Milton. “What are the chances? These people are believable and implicate Mr. Bush.

“I would suggest that we have proven that he was up to his neck as the getaway driver,” Yen told the jurors. “He wanted to get paid for Sonny Suber’s murder.” Testimony showed that the hit men would receive somewhere in the amount of $20,000.

But Thomas McCabe, Bush’s West Chester attorney, attacked the prosecution’s case as including “glaring holes” that involved testimony from a convicted murderer and drug dealer, namely Milton, and a questionable description of the alleged getaway driver that did not fit Bush’s physical appearance.

Instead, McCabe suggested that the getaway driver looked more like another of those charged in the murder, Shamone “Kadof” Woods, who authorities say had engaged the services of the gunman Coxry.

“The prosecution has demonstrated a lot of things in this case,” McCabe said in his closing. “(But) they haven’t demonstrated who the driver was. If you think it could be Mr. Bush, you should acquit because that is reasonable doubt. If you think it could be Mr. Woods, you also have to acquit, because that also is reasonable doubt.”

Bush did not take the stand to refute the charges against him. In an interview with the Daily Local News while awaiting trial in Chester County Prison last year, he proclaimed his innocence, and said that testimony against him had been fabricated.

What the two sides did agree upon, however, was that Suber, 33, was shot to death inside the foyer of his home in the 400 block of Walnut Street in Coatesville about 9:15 a.m. on Oct. 21, 2006, on the order of Peoples in furtherance of a feud between Peoples and Suber over Suber’s affair with People’s then-girlfriend.

In the courtroom listening to the arguments were Suber’s widow, Bashera Grove, who saw him shot at point-blank range eight times while lying at the foot of the staircase leading to the second floor of the home they shared, and Suber’s mother, Donna Pendleton. They did not interact.

The feud had earlier claimed the life of another Coatesville man, Brian Keith Brown, who in the early morning hours on April 1, 2006, was shot as he walked along a North Side street, reportedly on orders by Suber’s brother, Odell “Zelly” Cannon, in revenge for an attack on Suber by Peoples outside a city nightclub earlier that night.

Cannon was later shot and wounded that May in an ambush by two men, including Peoples’ brother, Omega “Kat” Peoples.

On Thursday, both Yen and McCabe agreed that Peoples had retrieved a .45-caliber handgun from his Caln home after driving with a friend from his home outside Atlanta, Ga., the day before. He allegedly gave that gun and an envelope containing cash to his associate, Woods, who then enlisted the help of Coxry.

Yen, however, then pointed to the testimony by Brown and Milton that Coxry had gotten help from Bush to drive him to and from the murder scene. The veteran prosecutor called Bush’s involvement in the case as the getaway driver “the classic example of an accomplice. He helps get the job done.”

In her testimony, Brown said that she saw Bush, Coxry and Woods together at a drug house in the 300 block of East Lincoln Highway the day before the murder, and that she saw Coxry flashing a semi-automatic weapon. That night she helped drive Coxry around the city, following Suber from one bar to another and eventually out of town, she testified.

On Oct. 21, 2006, Brown testified, Bush told her he had used a car to take Coxry to Fifth Avenue, near Suber’s home, where they finished up “some business.” Later, she said Coxry admitted that the “business” involved was Suber’s murder.

Milton, who testified he was at the drug house playing cards with Brown and others the day before the murder, said he too saw Coxry with the gun. He said that he awoke the following day to find Bush not at home, but that his friend returned shortly afterward. When Milton asked where he had gone, he sad Bush told him that he had gone to take care of a “situation.”

That, Milton said he believed, was Suber’s murder. Then, on Oct. 27, 2006, the day of Suber’s funeral, he said that Bush showed him a copy of the funeral program and told him, “That’s our work.” He joked that Suber was now with “the angels. He’s got wings.”

In trying to attack Milton’s credibility, McCabe noted that he had been granted a lenient sentence by federal prosecutors for drug trafficking, and a concurrent sentence for third-degree murder in which he would not receive any further prison time, in exchange for his testimony.

“If there was any incentive to lie to save his skin, that was it,” McCabe said of Milton.

The defense attorney pointed to one of the prosecution’s main witnesses, Yahaira Mendez, who was walking with her children just as the shooting occurred and who saw the getaway driver and the gunman. She was able to give police a detailed description of the shooter, later identifying Coxry, but could only give a vague description of the driver — a husky man with dark complexion, a full beard, and a round face, she said.

That description, she agreed on cross-examination in her testimony, did not fit Bush. But, McCabe said, it did fit Woods.

Yen, however, argued to the jury that Bush’s appearance had changed over the years from 2006 until he was arrested in 2009 trying to escape from Philadelphia police who had a warrant for his arrest. Gone was a beard and instead he wore glasses.

He also defended Milton’s testimony as believable, noting that if authorities felt he was wrongly implicating someone to secure a lighter sentence, they could pull out of the agreement and ask for a longer term in prison.

“Why make up a story?” he asked the panel. “There is simply no rationale for him to make up a story. No. The two witnesses are telling the truth. (Bush) got paid to do his part as an accomplice in the murder of Jonas Suber.”

Coxry, Peoples and Woods have all been charged with homicide in Suber’s death, and will face trials at a later date. All three are being held in state prison.